BY MIKEY MIGO
It was another quiet Sunday spent with a random movie. This time I dealt with the newly commercialized IFC and watched this random indie from 2008. I’m a bit surprised I missed this one. I tend to keep my eyes open for Alan Alda. I’ve read his books, I’ve listened to audio of the books, I seek him out on talk shows and I am just really fond of the guy and the guy’s work. I just trust the guy’s judgment when it comes to most entertainment projects. He’s not even the main star of this movie. He plays the Alzheimer’s impaired uncle to Matthew Broderick. Broderick’s character is suffering from memory loss so he goes back to his hometown and bonds with his uncle and his old love (Virginia Madsen). Along with that is her little boy played by Jimmy Bennett and support from Louis CK, Jim True-Frost(THE WIRE!), Dylan Baker, Bobby Cannavale, and others. It made for a nice quiet movie, basically about trying to get a grasp of who you are versus who you’ve become versus who you may become. It revolves around the fact that Alda has a really old and rare baseball card worth an assload. They travel to a collector show and try to sell it. Jerks try to screw them over and they have to overcome. If I said any more I feel like I’d give away the spontaneous entertainment I got from the movie. It centers hard on the Chicago Cubs fandom. I’m a Cubs fan, so I could relate and understand where some of these characters were coming from. That could be an issue though. The movie is so strongly rooted in the Cubs that it may have disconnected others from the movie. I’ve read a few reviews that don’t think the movie was all that good, but I thought it was pretty damn good. I thought the characters were well enduring, well acted, and charming. The direction was solid and the story was interesting. I don’t know what it was, but I do feel something didn’t feel right about the movie. Maybe it felt a little “light”? I’m actually not sure. It’s just missing something from being a full on fulfillment of a movie. The movie comes and goes and at the end you feel like nothing really changed. Broderick’s character never really changed other than he got closer to his uncle and his old flame. Alda does his normal goodness, but at times he almost comes off as the wacky sitcom uncle than someone who is genuinely suffering from the illness. He walks that fine line of being innocently aloof and slap sticky. I do recommend this movie because it IS good, but as much as much as it seems to try to be another “Little Miss Sunshine” it’s not even close. B
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